A trash-strewn community on the edge of Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta. Little of the area's billions in oil money has found its way to the people of the region.

Traditional fishing canoes pass a tanker in the Niger Delta.

Masked members of MEND (the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta), a militant group that has destroyed oil facilities and kidnapped foreign oil workers in what it says is a fight to re-distribute oil wealth.

A MEND militant painted in symbols meant to protect him from bullets.

A young woman bathes in oil-slicked water in Rivers State.

Sebastian Junger with MEND militants at a remote base in the Niger Delta in October 2006.

Bonny, site of one of Shell's main oil facilities in Nigeria.

A trash-strewn community on the edge of Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta. Little of the area's billions in oil money has found its way to the people of the region.

Traditional fishing canoes pass a tanker in the Niger Delta.

Masked members of MEND (the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta), a militant group that has destroyed oil facilities and kidnapped foreign oil workers in what it says is a fight to re-distribute oil wealth.

A MEND militant in the delta.

Local residents near an oil pipeline that exploded and burned for months.

Children play in the polluted waters of the delta as smoke from an oil fire rises in the background.

Children in front of a refinery's gas flares in Ebocha, Rivers State.

MEND rebels in a boat on the creeks of the delta.

A woman mourns near the remains of her home, which was destroyed by Nigerian Army troops in retaliation for villagers' support of MEND militants.

A child fetches water at an impoverished Nigerian village near an oil-flow station.

MEND rebels at a camp deep in the jungles of the delta.

A MEND militant.

Marshall Eli, in black; his 12-year-old daughter, Glory, with paddle; and 14-year-old Christian Idami, in hat, fish in the Bonny River as an oil tanker sits in the background. Fewer and fewer fish are being caught in the oil-slicked waters of the delta.

An impoverished community on the edge of Port Harcourt.

A MEND militant painted in symbols meant to protect him from bullets.

A young woman bathes in oil-slicked water in Rivers State.

Sebastian Junger with MEND militants at a remote base in the Niger Delta in October 2006.

Over the last four decades, Nigerian officials have stolen or squandered an estimated $400 billion, much of it coming from an oil industry that now ranks as the fifth-largest supplier to the United States. Most of Nigeria’s oil is pumped out of the Niger Delta, an impoverished region of tin-shack slums, nearly nonexistent public health care, and woefully inadequate schools. Now the local population’s anger against its government and the multi-billion-dollar oil companies that trample its delta homeland is taking the form of armed militants—men who kidnap Western oil workers and kill Nigerian security officials in what they call an effort to spread the oil wealth.

Michael Kamber is one of the few photographers to have captured these insurgents on film. He and contributing editor Sebastian Junger traveled to the delta for the February 2007 issue of Vanity Fair. Herewith, what could await the U.S. as it considers an increased reliance on West African oil. —AUSTIN MERRILL